Zimbabwe – Advocacy for equality in young children’s rights

The junior councillors advocated for all the necessities that young children require. They discovered that in Kadoma girls and young women are being deprived off their rights just because they are females. The council is trying to empower the future of women both in community and in leadership. Motivating the girls makes them aim higher and achieve more.

Young women in Kadoma community understand the issues of gender segregation more because they mostly come across them. The junior mayor Rufaro Michelle Majora, who managed to prove young women’s ability in governance, became their strongest motivation within the community and they decided to launch this project. The most amazing innovation was the increase in young boys and young men participating and advocating for this change.

The main objective for this project is to increase the emancipation of young girls and young women at large from patriarchal system. That include the reduction of child marriages by 50% by January 2017 and to increase the enrolment of young girls in schools.

The programme has reached only 1% of direct beneficiaries. The government of this country has allocated only $5000 to support this project.

The project has not come across many challenges as for now because the council is still trying to figure out more and explore more in the project. However financial constraints have been one issue that has hindered the project going forward. There has not been enough capital which made it harder to reach a wide coverage with the message. The perception that people had about the project made them resentful about joining the workshops and meetings in the wards. That is, the idea that the project’s aim for advocating for children’s rights, particularly girls, means trying to influence young girls into making wrong decisions and disregarding their parents’ rules.

Since the project is still new, with Monitoring and Evaluation, the project tracks police records and hospital records monthly reporting on children’s assaults of all sorts. Compilation and comparison of current and previous data is done to observe changes. To give feedback, the city council holds meetings to present what has changed towards youbng women of all the wards that are represented.

Young girls and young women have been empowered in a couple of ways. Some of which include young girls attaining great and big posts in local government. Some of the younger women have been encouraged to opt for STEM subjects and uproot themselves academically.

Rufaro Mitchelle Majora, a Junior Mayor, says, “As girls and young women we are not trying to wrestle with men for leadership posts, instead we want to work hand in hand with them to try and achieve gender equality.” The young men in Kadoma have proved to support gender equality and they have been supportive in all the campaigns that have been undertaken. They have shown great support even in local governance in supporting women empowerment. Young boys also participate in advocating for gender equality in children’s rights.

In the community level the elders also have shown supportive moves towards these campaigns and some fathers in the community also changed their attitudes towards the girl child, and there has been reduction in child marriages.

At household levels girls are now being granted equal opportunities as boys. The young girls are no longer being seen as assets that bring income to the family, instead they are now being empowered and strongly motivated. Parents are also considering investing in young girls to increase women empowerment and a better tomorrow. The project is still new and already attitude towards younger women has shifted from negative to positive.

The major lesson that has been learnt is to believe in young girl’s ability to succeed, and the ability to do better in those roles that have been reserved for the men. Also another lesson learnt is to empower the girl child which will bring a change in the society and educate them so as to increase their capability of leadership. These are being applied as we can visualize that the young junior mayor is female, and she is even making vibrant changes in the society that we are living in.

Due to the involvement of the community in these campaigns the girl child campaigns, and their cooperation we have seen that this project will sustain in the future. The local government is proving to support the project in these campaigns and they have shown their ability to sustain it due to their child friendly budgets that they contribute. They even granted an opportunity to the project to have the girl child 10 point plan and girl child budget to facilitate the empowerment of young girls. Nationally gender equality is being advocated for and this even backs up all other projects.